Thursday, July 2, 2015

Netflix Summer School: our favorite educational kids' shows

Here in the San Fernando Valley part of LA, it's been in the nineties pretty much every day for a month. I am a big fan of shutting kids outside to play (A BIG fan. Seriously.) but the blazing heat of the afternoons can melt even MY mean mommy heart. After all, people didn't really live here before there was air conditioning.

My kids do a lot of reading and crafts (mostly thanks to Kiwi Crate) in the summertime, but they also get to watch TV in the summer. Because as much as I love an unplugged childhood, there really are some GREAT educational shows available. An hour or so of TV in the afternoon means my kids might just learn something while also not making a mess of the house. Hooray!

In case you also enjoy smart, tidy children, I figured I would share the list of Netflix shows from which my kids are allowed to choose for summer viewing. My kids range in age from one to thirteen, Lulu is a pretty bad TV watcher (so annoying). But (with the exception of one of these shows) the rest of the kids will pretty much all sit through any of them.

If you're logged into Netflix, clicking on the title should take you right to the show.

When I did my first roundup of the kids' favorite shows on Netflix, you guys could NOT believe we had never seen Wild Kratts. So we gave it a try.

And I'm really glad we did. It's entertaining and original, and the relationship between the brothers is sweet, and they even use phrases like "was DESIGNED to" when talking about a particular creature. Yay!

So, anyway, all that to say . . . I grew up watching and loving Bill Nye the Science Guy and I could not be more excited that they just got season one on Netflix. I think the show holds up really well. My kids don't recognize the celebrity guests, but they probably wouldn't recognize current celebrity guests either.

Mr. Nye has a great way of explaining complex concepts in a way kids can understand and retain, and there's plenty of humor to go along with the science.

Remember when I told you there was one of these show that not ALL the kids are crazy about? Well, it's this one. But Betty loves it, and I do think if I could get the boys to sit through it, they would appreciate the personal glimpse into a specific moment in history that each episode gives the viewer. But. The stories are very girl-centric, and there are hints of romance, and the boys all bailed out without waiting to see how it turned out.

The series is based on the book series of the same name, and was made in 1999 and 2000. I've only watched a couple of episodes with Betty, but so far I really recommend it for girls who like American Girl-type engagement with history. The stories are pretty intense and feature tragic experiences for the main characters, but that's how history goes, right? No blood and guts, but just the intensity of the story lines may be too much for sensitive or younger kids.

Some of the modern marvels are more, um, marvelous than others. There's an entire episode, for instance, on food trucks . . . which I'm not sure deserve the title. But still, my oldest's engineer brain loves learning about the inner working of just about anything. Even a food truck.

So many of us struggle with broken bodies: be it infertility, sub fertility or miscarriages, or mental illness, or cancer, or an achin’ back. We struggle against an inclination to overeating, or laziness, or concupiscence. We watch our loved ones suffer from illnesses or infirmities.

We pray and pray and pray that God would heal our bodies, or take away our temptations, or remove the pain from those we love.

And it is GOOD that we do. We should never stop. Sometimes, as Jesus did for the paralytic, our bodies will be healed.

But, very often, that is not what happens. Very often, our sins are forgiven, but our infirmities remain. And that is when we need to fight to remember our priorities. That is when we need to rejoice that our sins are forgiven and the gates of heaven are opened to us, despite the imperfection of our bodies.

One that my kids like is Justin Time. It's about a very imaginative kid, Justin, who imagines his two pals going to different places. They experience ancient Egypt, Inuckshuck building, etc. in a fun way.

Good list, I didn't realize Bill Nye was on Netflix, I loved those shows as a kid!

Deep Question of the Day: do you give your kids a short list of movies/shows they may watch on netflix or do you allow them to choose more? Just wondering because my 13 year old has TERRIBLE taste in shows and while they're not *bad* in a moral sense they're very bad in a taste sense ;) For example, I've been treated to several rounds of Camp Rock and High School Musical 3 this summer and I kinda want to stab my eyeballs out just so I no longer have to see them ever again. And her taste is contagious, now my 7 year old boy likes those shows too, ugh. But is bad taste enough reason to disallow them?

The kids are only allowed to watch shows off of an approved list. These five shows are what they are allowed to choose between for this summer. I've watched at least two episodes of each, so I'm pretty comfortable that they aren't inappropriate/super annoying. Then we also watch movies together as a family, but the kids aren't allowed to watch anything on their own that isn't on the list. It cuts down on unnecessary "discussions" about what's allowed.

And general lameness is absolutely a good enough reason to get something banned in my house. I think I have a responsibility to try to help my kids learn good taste.

I concur that lameness/dumb/annoying are valid reasons for banning a show. Auntie Leila (everyone knows her, right?) says that if you expose your children to beauty (or quality in the case of TV programming), they will, in time, learn to seek it out themselves...preferring to avoid those lame shows on their own accord. She wrote this in the context of book selections, but I think it applies to TV as well.

Whoa, so I'm sitting here with my laptop catching up on some blogs while my daughter is watching Mr. Rogers on Amazon Prime. I see that you mention Bill Nye the Science Guy and I think, oh yeah, I used to watch his show all the time as a kid...

I suddenly notice an oddly familiar voice coming from the tv screen and look up to see what Mr. Rogers is up to - he's sitting at his table doing a science experience with - you'll never believe it - BILL NYE!!! Did you know that Bill Nye shows up on an episode of Mr. Rogers?? I had no idea. And talk about odd, creepy timing to suddenly stumble on this episode...ha ha ha.

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